I was on a live Ustream.tv call with Carlos & Lupe of Traffic Tactics last night, and they had some pretty interesting things to say. For those of you who don’t know about Traffic Tactics, they are the guys who make it look ridiculously simple to make in excess of $2 million per month, simply by buying traffic and sending it to their offers. That’s some pretty big ka-ching. Their secret is buying banner traffic, email traffic, etc. Pay Per Click is fairly small potatoes compared to the traffic that is available out there using banners and other forms of media. 

Anyways, although it is interesting to talk about Insertion Orders and everything else, one thing that Carlos said last night caught my attention, because I’ve been on this outsourcing kick lately. 

Only Two Things To Focus On

Carlos said that as a business owner, entrepreneur, whatever, you should only be focused on two things:

1. Getting more eyeballs to your offer. 

2. Making more money per eyeball. 

I think I paraphrased slightly, but you get the point. Identify everything you’re doing that is outside these two activities of generating traffic and increasing conversions, and outsource it! Now, I realize that this can’t happen all at once. I’m still in the very early stages of my business, so a lot of things I’m opting to do myself, at least the first time, so that I know how to do it. However, the trick is to outsource as much of this as possible, as soon as possible. Create systems when you learn how to do something, record it via Camtasia or JingProject (it’s free and super-uber-extremely easy to use!!) and then find someone to outsource this system to!

The other thing that he mentioned was that everyone is always talking about how knowledge is power. That is simply not true. I’ve met people who know a lot about everything, but are no good to anyone because they don’t know how to apply it. He said “applied knowledge is power” and that is far more accurate. If you know what to do, and do it, then you’re getting somewhere. That’s something I sometimes struggle with… I’m constantly reading, watching and listening to every new internet marketing technique that comes out, learning new things, but unless I actually sit down and apply what I’ve learned, I might as well be in jail for all the good it will do me. 

Well that’s it for today. Just a reminder - StomperNet is throwing out some ridiculous bonuses (4 pm today) from about a dozen huge name marketers (Mike Filsaime, Brad Callen, Jeff Walker, Rich Schefren, to name only a few!) to sweeten their already ridiculous offer for Stomping the Search Engines II. I really recommend checking it out - it will all be over by Monday, September 15th - no more bonuses. Seriously, these freebies alone are worth thousands. Plus, remember, the main offer only costs $10! This one is worth getting even just for the freebies.

I’m on a TON of mailing lists. In fact, a while ago I setup a separate email address specifically for this purpose. I did this for a couple reasons: a) because I have actually purchased quite a few of the best affiliate marketing products, thus I’ve naturally become part of these lists, and b) because I like to see how other marketers do their thing. Every now and then examples come through my inbox of great sales letters, and I like to keep those for future reference. It becomes a sort of “best of the best” toolkit for an email / affiliate marketer.

Anyways, this post isn’t really about my toolkit - today I wanted to rant about the amazing number of underground, previously unknown, rejected by all, newly arrived on the scene gurus. You probably know the ones I mean. “Straight from the underground” and all this jazz - doesn’t anyone else look at this as being merely the default marketing tactic to use if you’ve got no experience on the affiliate product launch scene? Can’t these guys come up with something more original?

It’s a funny thing, marketing to marketers. On the one hand, we’re all supposed to see through the hype because this is our world, right? Wrong. Apparently we’re just as susceptible as the next person - perhaps more so! The very fact that affiliate marketing products are simply everywhere is testament to that fact. Not a day goes by that I don’t receive at least 30 affiliate offers in my inbox. Most are marketing related. My spidey sense has to be on DEFCON 1 all the time, or I could easily buy more of them than I have time in the day to implement all their tricks and tips! I’d be curious, if someone could omnisciently discover the truth, how many affiliate marketers have in fact spent more on affiliate marketing products than they’ve actually earned by using them! Maybe I’m wrong, but I imagine there are masses of people out there who have purchased tons of products and never actually implemented them to their potential.

It seems like everything has to have more hype than the last - each email is more spectacular, each conference has a more amazing lineup, each product launch has more amazing giveaways and bonuses, etc. The sad thing about marketing is you simply can’t sell anything by saying “Another product from X - please buy it.” We all subconsciously crave that hype, knowing that the product we just bought is better than all of its competitors, and knowing that we now have an advantage over our own competition because of it! We made the right choice! This is the ultimate product, and I should be proud for having purchased it!

Yay me!

I realize by posting this absolutely nothing is going to change, and in fact I’m working on a sales letter of my own right now, and no doubt it will contain some of this language. Fact is, that’s what works. It’s also what people expect to see. If they don’t, they somehow become suspicious. I’ve walked away from some perfectly good products because the sales letter didn’t “wow” me. Others do too.

However, this post will not be in vain if the next time you read an uber-hype sales letter you pause, for just a microsecond, remember this post, and consider your motivations. Then feel free to dive back and in hit “Buy Now!” as quickly as possible.

Heck, you didn’t expect me to say don’t buy it did you? It might be one of my offers you’re reading!